


My Darkest Hour

by MillenniumNacht



Series: Legends of the Frost [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Blood, Child Murder, F/M, Filicide, Heavy Angst, Murder, Murder Family, Prolicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Terminal Illnesses, Uxoricide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:12:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillenniumNacht/pseuds/MillenniumNacht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”<br/>― Arthur Miller</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Darkest Hour

In sleep, he traces the ridges of her spine with a warm and careful finger, musing over why even through Sun’s Height she wears a blanket of ice across her skin. It’s not the first time that Pitch has wondered this, he’s quizzed Valerica on the fact more than once since he'd begun to notice the change within her. She’d only set upon him a gaze aged in rich and bitter wines, her form wrapped in bundles of fur and leather, chiding him with thoughts that perhaps the cold just liked her bones more than his. That perhaps the snow that dusted her locks was finally taking root, whereas he and their daughter both were beings forged from the deep ashen depths of Raven Rock, and thus warmed by the Red Mountain eruptions a sea away. It did little to appease the mer, especially when come morning he’s lost in her fits of coughing more than her idle and musical hums— when the presence of his skin against hers could no longer be a comfort.

Gilded hues stare in confusion and outright fear when he recognizes why the affections of his wife have since shied away. He notices it now, again engrossed in the dark hours after the sun has fallen, as bundled articles fall away to show bruises and blemishes upon the fair dusting of her skin. Some had begun to fester and raise, tearing at her flesh in discreet locations away from his knowing eyes. What once had appeased the Dunmer and his troubled thoughts now only bring to the forefront questions he’d rather not ask especially when seeded from his darkest fears. She’s awoken from his stirring and now aware, and she calls him in quiet pleas of his name that he cannot answer to. Corprus killed, they both knew. She’d educated him thoroughly on the topic many moons ago when their child had harbored an illness he couldn’t name. She’d assured him, then, that the sickness of a child was feeble in comparison as to what was out there in the world.

It was different though when it came into his home, and moved from taking not just one life— but two.

Parental worries rooted them both when Seraphina refused to rise from bed not even a day later. Dark skin pale and sweat slick as coughs shook her in violent fits no milk or tea could soothe in the hours just before dawn. He’d gazed at her then, his knowing and educated wife wrapped in once warm pelts, and knew in an instant that her blood-rose eyes lined with Iggnir tears had already diagnosed the plague their fair child would succumb to. That she, herself, was more than personally acquainted with.

There had to be something though...

_Anything._

They could both come out of it on their own, right?

…Never had Pitch seen two women fight so hard in his entire life as strongly as the ones in his home did.

Valerica warmed herself by hearth fires so hot that his soul would quiver at just the sight of her, even when her gaze upon him was questionable. As if she’d forgotten who he was.

Seraphina fueled with brimstone so bright that a temperamental gaze of a child in a fit could throw the tall shade to his knees. Her little fists caught in dusky palms as she thrashed against his unwavering might.

He was a soldier fallen in the field of battle when his wife caught him in a spell of clarity, attention focused on the child that nestled between them in the bed that they shared. She’d curled her had around his ear, stirred him to attention, and she’d smiled in that demur way of hers when he’d growled at her for reasons unfit for a child between them.

“My shade…”

Ｈｅｒ ｖｏｉｃｅ．．．

“You will end this for us, won’t you?”

Silence spread between them, and he knew then what it felt like for the many he'd seen in battles lost, as victory for the other side plunged through the heart of kin with a silver blade.

“Don’t play games with me, Val…”

Her hand had fallen, curling blistered fingers into unruly ebony strands as their daughter slumbered on between them unaware.

Ｈｅｒ ｔｏｕｃｈ．．．

“I can’t watch her get to this point, Pitch, and I know you can’t either. I know too that you already have considered it an option… don’t try and say to me otherwise, you’re a terrible liar and you can’t pull a veil over my eyes.”

“...I did, once.”

An intoxicating gaze is set on him, her mood not accepting his jest.

“I vowed to you that I would give the rest of my days to your hand--”

“And I will not stain that hand with your life and hers. Do you wish for me to carry that for the rest of my days, without either of you here? Pray tell what have I done to deserve such a thing?”

“Then I will search for another--”

“ _No one will touch what is **mine**._ ”

Her lips curled.

Ｈｅｒ ｆｌａｒｅ．．．

“Daddy— no!! I don’t understand, why would you _do_ this?! You can’t, Daddy, you can’t! What did Mommy and I do to you?! I _**hate**_ you, Daddy— Don’t touch Mommy, I won’t let you!!”

Ｍｙ ｃｈｉｌｄ．．．

“Sera, sweetie, please… come here.”

Ｏｕｒ ｓｗｅｅｔ ａｎｄ ｓｔｒｏｎｇ ｃｈｉｌｄ．．．

“No! Mommy what are you doing?! Have I been bad?! Why—”

Tendrils of frosty locks curl in violently shaking black as the mother of the coughing child gives him a gaze full of love— asking of him to be quick, to not back down, to not let the little bit of the strength that is in her left go to waste—

Ｏｕｒ ｌｏｖｅ－－

“We will love you, forever more— but I _implore_ of you, my shade, do what must be done.”

 

тнєιя єη∂.

 

He can’t think of the sensation as he drops to his knees, blood slick and shaking, to pull them near. Not recognizing the wails coming from his chest as anything more than a constant constriction against the air that he so desperately needs. He can’t see—

Does he _want_ to see?

_No, he **can’t** —_

He doesn’t _**deserve** to look at them—_

... Or rather at what _remains._

Tears are mixing in with whatever he can’t describe is pooling in his hands and he feels the two of them against his heart like a heavy weight pulling him under. Drowning him as eyes once lit fall into darkness.

He wants to follow them, it’s what he should do— of course it is, what other option is there—

But he can’t, he won’t—

Pitch deserves the suffering of living on for what he’s done, for the act that he’s just committed.

_...I’m a monster._

**ι’м α мσηѕтєя.**

**Author's Note:**

> I wish there was really more that I could say about this piece, unfortunately though, what you see is exactly what you're getting. Welcome to the history of Pitch in Redemption Bound, and the main reason for all of his issues in the segments to come.


End file.
